The Dawn from Sixty Nine Stories Up
by Petronia
Summary: 24 hours of Midgar Noir: featuring murder, blackmail, war flashbacks, corporate skullduggery and twists of fate. Rufus Shinra channelling the Sternwood girls (sankyuu Raymond Chandler). Yes, there is angst.


**The Dawn From Sixty-Nine Stories Up**

_To !SuperCat - for understanding, syntactic infallibility and patience practiced as an extreme sport

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_I. Dream Sequence_

In the end it happens there, on the roof.

They could not lock out the blue sky. There is, perhaps, a grimy skylight, a place where the sheet metal of the shed does not join properly. There is penumbra, so that the flesh of the other glows as in a dream. There is heat, and it is perfectly windless.

He can imagine this happening just to get away from the heat.

His father called this man the General. So for the boy it is a battle: a sighing, silken loss. They kiss until they're breathless, until he has to close his eyes at the sway of their hips against each other. But the General keeps his open. Strong the hands that slip his clothing, guide him down. Plastic sheeting under his palms, and beneath that the rawness of poured concrete - the boy turns his face away, lip caught between teeth, pleading choked in his throat. "What are you doing?"

But he doesn't understand, doesn't remember, the words of the answer.

Tinkle of metal fastenings hitting the ground. Hands on him, his own answering, clumsy caresses. Such a long fall. Then they are entangled, lips teasing where sticky blond tendrils have plastered to his face, trailing down his throat and his body until all rules are forgotten and there is nothing he can do to stop it from happening. Nameless instinct, unbearable, almost pain, almost...

"Please-"

The sure knowledge of disgrace. But it's easy to say: his body stopped hiding long ago.

Something cold shifts in the General's eyes, the color of them deepens, but his touch is langourous parting the boy's limbs. Then he pulls away, watching. Watching. He is beautiful; inhuman. The boy trembles. His body wants with a fierceness he no longer recognizes. This man, this man he would follow anywhere-

Shifts over him, slick with shared sweat. A hand trails up the inside of his thigh, capturing the pulsing ache, and he arches into the seduction. His hands tangle in gleaming silver. "I love you," he whispers suddenly, not knowing if it is true. But it's easy to say.

He has never been so afraid.

The General laughs, softly. His eyes are the green of poison materia, glittering like dragonfly wings.

"Get on your knees, then," he says.

This failing called desire.

It is only later that the boy would remember the camera.

_II. Friday Morning Forced March_

_The mud is hell out here. Rainy season and it sucks down your boots so you can't walk, cakes your face so you can't keep your eyes open. Once or twice an hour you trip over a tree root or clamber over rocks blocking the game trail, slippery with lichen, and then the sludge gets on the rest of you. It stiffens your uniform so you're too slow for your own reflexes when you fight. You have to fight, even if the General says hide until the scouts leave, because they find your tracks sometimes and you have to keep them from reporting back. You're surprisingly good. Maybe they'll give you special training if - when you get back home. Nasty work, the mud. Get a knife in the arm or the stomach, it'll rot you like it rots your armor straps and no one will ever know. Gangrene case a day out here. And now they're ahead of you - waiting -_ there is a light flashing arterial red out of the corner of his eye _and will you be the next one to bleed?_

_In all that brown only fresh blood shows._

_The mission was the General's idea, and that's why you're on it. That and you don't know shit better. They're too fast is the thing, damned Wutai bastards with their razor-edge weapons and their cavalry, like they never figured out they're fucking obsolete in the face of automatic fire and self-targeting artillery. This was going to be a long-distance war, they said at recruitment. Push a button and watch the opposition fry. Smart boy, get your ass out of this hole of a slum and into a techie job, maybe the folks at home'll get to see you on company-sponsored television. Eighteen months, five ambushes, two strategic retreats and a rout later, you're using your bare hands to finish them off. At least you're getting paid. Shinra always delivers on that much, unlike the government._

_You never found out what went wrong until the General came. Come to think of it, you never knew who was running the show before. Maybe it wasn't the private sector. But the General was different. He leant on his sword and let his eyes sweep over you as he talked - clean eyes, cool. Like he was meeting every one of your gazes._

_They know the terrain better, he said. They know our supply lines, our camp grounds. They're making us play their game. We're superior in numbers and in weaponry; we have to break their confidence. Lure them to our weapons. Who's with me?_

_And before you knew it, you were in the party. Hell with that: by this time you know to obey orders and keep your mouth shut, and volunteering does not go hand-in-hand with survival. But it was the way he looked at you, and the way all the old-timers he brought with him just laughed, raucous and knowing, and their eyes glowed kindly-deep like the forest after the rain. In expectation of the kill._

Always the red flash, like his heartbeat.

_You're close to where they are. They'll sense you soon, and when they do you'd better be prepared to run. To fight once you can't run anymore. He's ahead of you, striding as if the mud couldn't touch him, as if he didn't bleed, as if his sword never misses its mark. You're scared but you trust him. Fuck it, why shouldn't he lead you through this? Why wouldn't he? You belong to him like all the rest, don't you?_

There is sound, shrill as a shrapnel wound, tearing through his skull.

_They are coming._

The red light flutters, and dies.

He awakens, his eyes opening onto the darkness of an invisible ceiling, still as the vanished dead immortalized in lead or sandstone.

He is awake, and his alarm is ringing.

Tseng rolls onto his side and hits the snooze button, glancing at the clock display. Red LED numbers wink at him. 5:27. He has a meeting in forty-eight minutes. He sits up, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed.

Sudden memory savages him. His eyes close.

"Not fucking again," he says to the darkness.

_III. Short-Term Strategy_

Rufus Shinra touches glass, cool and shadowed, with his fingertips. He ignores the hum of climate control and impatience behind him; the incessant breath of the Building. Fey verdancy of the city. He watches an early-morning train pass far beneath him, still-lit compartments swaying like the jointed body of some mako-warped serpent.

Eight hours, he repeats to himself. And:

Never show weakness.

"It's a godforsaken time, Rufus. Why are we here?"

Scarlet.

Rufus turns casually, smiling. The Weapons Division head stares back at him from across the expanse of desk, eyes narrowed. The R&D middle-manager she brought with her shuffles his feet uncomfortably; beside her, at the head of his usual brace of Turks, Heidegger merely looks sullen. Cowed. But Scarlet knows her own usefulness, and so Rufus smiles.

He runs a hand over his desktop - over the chipped gap in the marble - and watches her eyes change.

There had been remarkably little blood. The coroner's report (the _internal_ report disseminated to the board, as opposed to the one released to the Shinra mouthpieces that constituted Midgar's major press agencies) stated that the entry wound had been cauterized immediately upon trauma, at a temperature high enough to re-forge most blades. It spoke of residual tissue levels of mako rivalling that of reactor fall-out. It spoke of the heart through which Masamune had passed, charred beyond recognition.

Fucking fitting.

Rufus didn't grudge his father a quick death. But he harboured no illusions about what the old man deserved.

"In the interest of the company, of course," he says when he sees the echo of fear in her gaze. "Transparency and accountability, my good Scarlet."

"Meaning?"

"The results of our short-term strategy. Or lack of them, as it were."

Scarlet's perfectly glossed lips thin. Without looking she reaches behind her and pats the reseach-developer on his arm. "Be a dear," she says, "and wait for me downstairs."

Be a dear?

The man glances back at her before the door closes, and Rufus's throat closes on unaccustomed bile. A handsome, soft one, he notes, just as Scarlet likes them - and as much poison as her hidden within. Power, isn't it? Funding, influence, nepotism. It's always power in the Shinra Building. Forget that once and look what he's reduced to.

He must plan-

"Whether or not you retrieve Sephiroth," Scarlet hisses, "has nothing to do with me apart from equipment orders. If you're casting about for scapegoats, talk to this fool, or to Hojo. I'm in the productive minority."

"I'd like to see you run this mission with nothing but rumour to go by," Heidegger snaps, reddening. "We're hard on the trail-"

"Without the slightest idea how to neutralize him once you've found him, you idiot. I wouldn't be particularly enthusiastic myself if I were part of your team."

"Shut up," Rufus says pleasantly, and both department heads flinch. But - interesting? He realizes - not the pair of Turks Heidegger had brought with him. Tseng Rude, wasn't it? And Tseng. "I'm not being told something here. I dislike not being told. Is Hojo stonewalling?"

Scarlet makes a sound of exasperation. "He never stopped holding out in the first place. We none of us know dick, remember? Sephiroth's file-"

"Is classified up to the departmental level. You're an enterprising member of our team, Scarlet. Why don't you get him to run you off a copy." Tseng, yes. Long dark eyes, chiseled features of an ascetic bonze. Sudden memory of sleep-surfacing to the dark water of those eyes: _I'm sorry for the inconvenience, sir, but there's been an emergency situation and we have to evacuate you from the building-_ "I'm sure he'll oblige if you ask him nicely."

Scarlet stares at him. "You're going to fob this off on me?"

"In a word, yes." What emergency, he asked. And Tseng said, _the General-_ "You're not afraid of him, are you?"

Silence.

"No," Scarlet says finally, too slowly, "I'm not. You called me up here just for this, I suppose."

_The General has returned, sir. Your father is dead._

"No," he says. "Not entirely. There exist certain points I feel a need to clarify."

She waits.

"The success of this mission has everything to do with all of us, Scarlet. I doubt Masamune is so discriminating in its assignment of responsibility." The fear in their eyes; it makes him smile again, even though deep inside he has to lock down on something that, suddenly, struggles. "And We're not in the process of retrieving Sephiroth. We're in the process of terminating him."

And just like that, the plan falls into place.

As they file out:

"Tseng, isn't it?" he says. "I think we've met."

_IV. Working Breakfast_

Salad. Sushi laid out on enamelled platters, screens placed for maximum discretion and minimum affront to the booths' sleek-chrome aesthetics. Très executive. Bottled water for him, wine for the President. The vintage older than either of them.

Turks follow - somewhat at the vagary of individual judgment - a handbook, in which Tseng wrote the subchapter dealing with on-duty seating arrangements. He has a clear view of the doorway. No holster, out of corporate courtesy, but he keeps an auxiliary up his sleeve. K65 point-three-oh straight from the labs, triple-slotted, twelve expanding rounds in a mako-polymer magazine the size of a pack of breath mints. Back it with the right materia and it deals semi-automatic fire without the kick. Shinra make, of course.

He fights a fatigue not of the body.

If he closes his eyes now he will descend into loam-darkness, stifling and sweet, a long-forgotten sensation nipping at his heels. So he watches Rufus. The line of his throat as he turns his gaze to one side, tracking their waiter's passage across the room. So much for vaunted power. Not one of the departmental heads is a man for the hour: were Rufus Shinra to die, as he could have a dozen times over _that_ night alone, the conglomerate itself would fracture into dust. Would Tseng be any more free to act if he were unaware of the danger?

"I pulled your file," Rufus says finally. "You saw action in Wutai." It is not a question.

"Some, yes."

"When?"

"I was discharged with wounds after Umeyama Creek."

"Then you saw the worst of it." Rufus lights a cigarette, an expensive brand from a silver case. "That was when the tide turned, wasn't it? Umeyama Creek. I was a boy then."

There is a sudden edge to his smile, but Tseng takes no notice.

"I was a common recruit, sir," he says. "But I saw the General in action. That's as much first-hand experience of his ability as our team has been able to muster without the direct involvement of SOLDIER. Did you wish to discuss this?"

He notes a reflexive tension. Then Rufus laughs. It is a surprisingly easy sound.

"You still call him the General," he says. "Do all veterans of Umeyama?"

"There aren't many veterans of Umeyama, sir. And rest assured that those of us who remain, are men loyal to the Company." It is a stock response. He is aware of why Shinra's administrators do not deploy SOLDIER in Sephiroth's path; are in fact scrambling to prevent rumor from seeping into the military division. Ten years he watched their greed and lack of foresight, now he watches their fear. _They've bred more than one lion they cannot cage._

Yet he would be loyal. He would kill - had done as much already - and would die too, for them. He should be capable of it, he knew, without a thought given: if it were not for the darkness where he should have bled his life away, and the cold green fire.

Save the green fire.

The memory sparks another, unaccustomed and raw.

_A darkened bedroom. There would be yet a moment before alarms, before the mad dash to the roof; in that moment they are still. The diffused edge of a searchlight sweeps past, making shadows dance over the ceiling. The light catches on a chrome fixture, the muzzle sight of his weapon, Rufus's wide-eyed gaze. It sparks a tightness in Tseng's ribcage that is close to resentment. The heir in waiting could not love his father, he knows. But Rufus has in that moment the eyes of the very young, wounded and dying in the mud below those foreign trees. Tseng did not expect to be reminded of such fear. And he wishes-_

_To touch. He is not used to hiding his own thoughts from himself. Anything: a cuff, the silken hem of Rufus's robe, the gold of his hair mussed from the pillow. Simply to know who - what - would extract from him such a price._

"Of course. Oh! Don't think I implied that" Rufus waves a hand, dismissing - betrayal, Tseng thinks. He knows I could betray him. We all could. "Take it as a measure of my interest. I'm quite taken with your efficiency. I imagine that without your palliative measures, there would not have been the orderly transition there was after my father's death."

"Is this advance notice of a commendation, sir?"

The cigarette dies ashen in a bed of crystal. Rufus unfolds a slip of paper from his breast pocket, slides it across the table face down.

"I need you to eliminate someone. A private favor."

You have to have seen it all, really, before they let you near the handbook.

"Blackmail?"

And for a moment those eyes are very young again.

Outside it begins to rain, water-drops tainted with the tracest amount of green.

_V. Funny Dude_

Coasting down the Trans-Midgar in light traffic at eleven to ten, the sedan's wipers squeaking against wet glass, Tseng is surprised at his own anger.

Reno sprawls in the half-reclined seat beside him, velveted in boredom, drawing on a dog-end as if it were the last in Midgar. The cigarettes were Tseng's, to keep him from making a fuss at the hospital reception about getting his own back. A conscious week without nicotine spurred Reno to full recovery almost as much as resentment against AVALANCHE.

"Sector Four," he drawls, echoing. "Same as always, boss. Like the back of my hand."

"Res Hermann. The one-minute version."

"Bloatie Res. Strictly bit player. Handyman, runs a motorbike repair up over Mesmer Alley, hangs with the in-crowd. Runs a little info-gathering on the side, selling back to people who'd like stuff kept under wraps. Maybe investigate for clients who want to get the goods on someone; maybe investigate those clients too. Got a nose for it. He used to be Shinra security before they retired him with a bad leg, but he's not the kind to sit his ass on a pension."

"Narc? Market?"

"Doesn't play. We're talking soft goods all the way. Funny for a bit player who thinks he's big - he doesn't talk big." Reno gestures vaguely with his cigarette, scattering ash. "This being the Sector Four thinkin' set and shit, that in itself landed Bloatie a reputation for being a deep one. Word is he does commissions for the suits from upside - puts the twist on people they don't wanna hafta phone up and breathe heavy at themselves. Collects suspiciously weighty ladies' luggage sets and sends them up the lift, all that. I think the proverbial word is full of shit, but that's your call."

A middleman and a bit player. "He the type to make for a big haul on his own?"

"Hey, who's to say, right?" Reno flashes his teeth. "Like the man said, it ain't over 'til the fat chocobo sings. But I'd be surprised if the bird sang for Bloatie." Tseng nods.

"I want a list of all his contacts, his clients, his lays, his twists, his drinking buddies, his crash pad, his fuck pad, the guy he chatted with at the urinal last Wednesday afternoon, and I want it within the hour." Reno makes an explosive sound.

"You're shitting me, Tseng."

"I'm dropping you off at headquarters. You do this first, then you clean your desk. I want it patched to my communicator as soon as you put something together."

"When are we leaving?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"And you want us to blitz this dude today?"

"You gonna do your job, Reno?"

There's a moment of silence. He glances to the side in preparation for leaving the passing lane, and realizes Reno is staring speculatively. Smart. He sometimes forgets he hires them for smart.

"This about Rufus Shinra?"

"No." But he says it too fast, and Reno gives a derisive, smoke-wreathed snort.

"Fuck it. He thinks we're his personal bodyguards now, doesn't he? Don't even bother to tell me why Bloatie Res is in the picture, I can put two and two together. I pity the fool if you're gonna stand up for pretty-boy."

Tseng concentrates on keeping his hands on the wheel. "Reno-"

"-Shut the fuck up, I know. But man, this is some shit in my view." Reno sucks on the butt of his cigarette greedily until it's all ash, crushes it in the ashtray and fumbles for another.

"You know," he says. "You could just go for it. Fuck the flow chart. Scarlet's laying her ballistics-research geek, isn't she? If you want him-"

"I don't want him," he snaps.

Reno gives a bark of something that may be laughter. He cranks the passenger window down a notch so that the smoke can escape; the scent of early morning rain and mako exhaust mingles with the pungency of cloves.

"Funny," he announces to no one in particular. "My boss is a funny dude."

_VI. Lookin' Down on Creation_

The boy lets the door swing closed. High noon slams into him as he steps forward from the shadow of the elevator shed, making him forget to breathe. Climate-controlled living quarters and conference rooms have left him only peripherally aware of summer: the blasting-chamber heat shocks him. The air wavers over the freshly-laid helipad tarmac like rising smoke. Ventilation shafts, tangled pipes and exposed concrete molding, satellite dishes. In the distance-

They are building, in the distance. Reactors his father said, in order to power the greatest city in the world.

A storage chamber of corrugated sheet metal extends from a poured concrete base between him and the side of the building. He approaches this structure: he needs something to lean against when he looks over the edge.

Midgar at noon.

Sprawl of perpetual motion and morseled dreams, like all cities. Dark mass of tenements, throughfares, slums, monuments, clustering skyscapers marked for demolition as the property of corporations bought out in Shinra Conglomerate's latest round of acquisitions But Urban Planning brought their model to the meeting today. So the boy's mind overlays the view with the great wheel in the featureless plain of the Western continent, the Building at its hub, spokes supporting the sky-darkening plate, reaching out to the reactors that are to be Shinra's pride. Eight reactors - utilitarianly numbered, man-made volcanos - spewing the light of mako-green forges into the sky.

His father said: It will all belong to you one day.

He runs a finger along the edge of the stolen keycard that had allowed him egress from the Building, his breath quickening. It belongs to me, he repeats to himself, but the words mean something different up where he is now. The heat feels alien; the heat and the quiet, the absolute silence, the silence with the city's roar fallen away floors and floors beneath his feet. The world silent.

In his mind empty of sound a green gaze meets his.

The boy leans back against the sun-touched metal, his eyes closing. The meeting troubles him; he cannot rid himself of the lancing burn of that gaze. Even the trepidation it causes in him now is uncanny, akin to vertigo. Never show weakness, his father always said, but he has no name for the failing he hid then.

The heat is an unbearable weight. Experimentally he spreads his fingers over the damp linen of his shirt, bearing against the rise and fall of respiration. Buttons scrape his palm as he shifts that hand over his abdomen, circling, moving downward; caressing. Pressing on the ache between his legs. His breath comes in hitching pants; he licks his lips and tastes sweat. It is very much like dying, this game, and though the rules are his own still they make him afraid-

He bites his lip when the end comes. A sound escapes him nevertheless, and out of reflexive habit he turns his head to see if he is discovered.

The General's green eyes.

Black, black and silver, sunlight glares on the arcanely worked fastenings of his dark clothing, and not a breath of wind stirs the fall of his hoarfrost hair. It is a moment before the boy understands he is there - so perfectly is he attuned to the heat and silence and his own coiling dreams, so perfectly alien like these. And by then it is too late. Two long strides and he is caught beneath the speculation in those eyes, trapped like the heartbeat fluttering madly against his ribs. Cool fingers trace the edge of his face.

"You shouldn't wander off alone," the General says finally. "They won't be able to find you here." The tone of his voice is very gentle.

_VII. Clean-Up Mission_

"See, it's like this," Rude says. "The part in the handbook about requesting back-up, Boss, that was your by-line. Upon con-_si_-deration I figured we have to hold you to it even just for the look of the thing, and Reno agreed. All he gave me was the address."

Tseng doesn't bother to argue the point, occupied in slotting his gun. He checks the magazine, re-holsters. "We're taking out one Res Hermann," he says. "But I think I need to have a talk with him first." If he has a source among his clients, someone backing him-

"Bloatie Res," Rude agrees. "Exits?"

"The building's A-type. I'll take the front." Rude shrugs, mirrored shades hiding his expression, and lets himself out of the sedan. A-type is a signifier for master bedroom fire escape, second floor and above. The Urban Planning Department isn't known as a bastion of creativity, and the same three or four architectural blueprints reoccur in all its subsidized housing projects. At least it makes Turks' work easier. Tseng allows Rude five minutes to get into position before he turns the corner and heads up the concrete walk toward the building's vestibule.

Baby blue wallpaper. Dark brown carpet.

The white of a crumpled shirt in the sunset-weary light, discarded.

At such times he sees everything. Tightly-drawn venitians, wallpaper peeling where it meets the molding. Tseng slides the master key back into his pocket. He toes the door closed soundlessly, then gives a series of quick raps against the wood.

There is stirring in the bedroom, and soft swearing. Tseng is in position when the door bangs open. He's previously memorized the strengths of the man silhouetted in the opening as well as his features, as he was expecting resistance - but there is none. Only the pudgy man there on splayed feet, beer stomach bare over the elastic of his boxers, the outrage of the abruptly awoken spilling into his eyes. He takes three steps forward, unconsciously fearless: at home in his domain. _Easy mission._

"The fuck? How'd you-"

Lightweight plastic slides against the inside of Tseng's wrist, and he brings the muzzle to bear on the other's face. The man's words die in his throat.

"Res Hermann?" Tseng asks for the form. One step and he has the man's arm twisted behind his back, gun pressed against his temple at point blank range.

"Ye-yeah. Who-"

"Not important, Mr. Hermann. We'd like to have a little talk with you." Terror fluctuates in the man's eyes, interwoven with sudden cunning.

"Listen, ah, who're you with?" he says. "'Cos everything's going according to plan, it really is-"

The tinkle of glass under gunfire; a familiar sound.

Hermann staggers, blood blooming on his lips, but Tseng has already let go. Even as the other man crumples he hits the ground, rolling to his knees beside the shattered window. No more shots ring out, however, and a curse escapes him. At this angle it would have to have come from an adjacent building, and Rude is far better positioned than he to assess the situation from that direction.

Someone screams from the bedroom.

Tseng moves as fast as thought, diving through the door. The sound stops abruptly.

The boy is sitting up, bedclothes bunched up against him. A young thing, blond; very quiet now. Tseng stands slowly, keeping his gun trained. A diminishing clatter on the fire escape below the balcony window tells him Rude has taken up the chase. He backs up until he is beside the doorway, his shoulders braced against the wall.

The boy catches the sheet higher against his chest, eyes flickering mechanically from the blocked exit to Hermann's unmoving form beyond. His gaze crosses Tseng's and locks. Tseng doesn't flinch.

"Is he dead?" the boy asks finally, in a hoarse whisper. He wets his lips.

"He worked a dangerous line." The boy's eyes darken, and Tseng shifts his grip on his weapon. "Man of many talents, Mr. Hermann, but that only made him more likely to slip up. You worked for him, kid?"

Blue eyes shading to violet. With loathing? "Yeah if you wanna call it that."

"We'll call it that for the moment. Ran errands for him? He covered for you on the street?"

The boy nods jerkily.

"You've been around, then. Who was Mr. Hermann working for the last few days of his career?"

"The hell you think I am? Res never told me nothing about his clients."

"That's quite regrettable, since his client seems to have reneged on their agreement." The boy's eyes slide to the body by the door. "That's the work of his payroll roster, kid. Res got fucked over. You got fucked over too, by extension. Now, are you sure you were never the least bit curious?"

The boy does not move, except to hug his arms a little closer to his chest. Eventually he says, "Res used to lock me in the bedroom, but I listened at the keyhole once. Couldn't see shit, but he called the guy Mr. Werther to his face. Like I said, he never said a word to me."

"Tag team, Boss." Rude appears in the doorway. His sunshaded features are impassive as usual, but a trace of disgust overlays his basso rumble. "I got one and the other took off. But have a look." He hands Tseng a ripped piece of reinforced fabric and padding, part of a sniper's glove.

A label stitched into the inseam read, "Property of Shinra Co. Weapons Department."

"Looks like Bloatie Boy here pissed off more than one big cheese at a time," Rude notes. He half-kneels by the body, turning it on its side with a professional heave. "Neat work, but I resent the in-_ci_-pient prospect of doing a dump for the Weapons Dep before dinner. Boss?"

Tseng stares unseeing, the image of a softly handsome face surfacing in his mind. "Rufus must know," he murmurs. "I underestimated him. Can you call up President Shinra's schedule for this evening? After 6 PM."

"Sir." Rude thumbs open his communicator. "Society obligations, it seems. Opera, then a dinner party. Given by Josiel Werther, you know, Scarlet's squeeze that was at the caucus today? She's not on the expected guest list, though. Go figure." Rude shifts on his heels, lifting his head so his shades are twin reflections of Tseng's form. "You all right, Tseng?"

"Quite fine." Tseng moves, reholstering his gun. "It's just that if I'm to be the ancillary clean-up I'd appreciate being told as much. Can you handle things here?"

"To a T, Boss. What about-" Rude gestures. And so does Tseng: a tiny jerk of his head, still holding blue eyes with his.

"He was cooperative," he says. "Out." And the boy is gone, in a flurry of hastily snatched clothing. Rude watches him exit.

"You know better," he says. Tseng shrugs.

"Do your work, Rude. I'll file the report tomorrow morning."

There is no trace of the boy when he reaches the car.

_VIII. Glass and Air_

"And this is just a charming little find of mine. An imitation, of course; but the executor is obviously of the Arrowny school, and poli-"

The safety's removal makes the minutest of sounds. Josiel Werther doesn't even notice until he turns around to catch the reaction of his art-tour-inclined audience, and finds himself staring into the mouth of a dueling pistol.

"Give it to me," Rufus says.

"Mr. President?" Werther tries to smile. He raises his hands appeasingly, but the look in Rufus's eyes makes him retreat a step.

"Don't make me repeat myself. I dislike that." Rufus follows him, advancing. Another step, another. The weapons researcher stumbles as he bumps up against the side of his bed. "And I dislike wasting my time as well. Where is it?"

"I don't know what you mean!" Werther scrambles back into the pillows until his shoulderblades hit the headboard. "Sir-"

"Do you think you can save yourself by playing dumb?" Rufus's voice is low and precise, but his eyes have darkened so much the blue is nearly gone. "Scarlet's thrown you over, Josiel. She terminated your projects just today. You don't know how efficiently she cuts herself loose when she tires of someone, do you? You thought if you could just find another source of funds, you'd be all right even if she refused to sink any more money into your research. Research, research." A tiny, eerie laugh. "That's all you scientists think about, ever. Just taking it to the next step. It'll be the death of you."

Werther stares. The room is quiet; the sounds of downstairs revelry drift in the floor-to-ceiling windows, laughter and snatches of conversation filling the lull before the hired band strikes up another tune. Neither host nor guest of honor will be missed for a while yet.

He has to blink, all of a sudden; sweat is running into his eyes.

"You can't kill me," he says finally, hoarsely. "I've taken precautions."

"Mr Hermann, you mean?" Werther flinches. "I wouldn't depend too much on Mr. Hermann. Especially since you must have sent someone after him, once you thought it was over." Rufus sets a knee on the bed, leans closer and smiles. "He came to you with the tape, didn't he? I hear he used to work down in Building Security. But I'm sure he let you think it was all your idea. And while we're on the subject, Josiel, where is the tape? You know how I feel about procrastination."

Werther is shaking, hard. His hands clench and unclench in the pillows behind him, unseen. Aloud he says, "It's not-"

The door bangs open, and Rufus's head jerks back. In that moment of inattention Werther throws himself to the side desperately; his hand comes up with a handgun in its grip. Light flashes off the oily black metal.

Tseng fires twice, and an arc of crimson disfigures the Arrowny-school still-life behind Werther. The researcher convulses, toppling backward onto the bed, the gun slipping out of his hand. His throat is a gory horror. Rufus spins in fury, the barrel of his own weapon finding its aim in Tseng's heart.

"Damn you," he snarls. "He didn't-"

But as quick as that, his voice gives out on him.  
  
Tseng's eyes are dark and steady. He walks up to the bed, reaches over the dead man and fumbles at something hidden in the molding of the painting frame. A wooden panel swings open. With a sweep of the hand Tseng empties the compartiment onto the blood-soaked sheets: gil, elastic-bound bundles of Shinra promissory notes, raw and polished materia gleaming dull gold and green and crimson, that roll off the bed and clatter on the floor like a child's stash of marbles. A palm-sized videocassette of black plastic, the kind used in handhelds and security backups.

"Second-rate scientific types are always predictable," he says. "Even more so when they have a lease from Urban Planning. Do you want to check the contents of this?"

"No." Rufus realizes his hands are trembling, and it makes his gorge rise with self-loathing. "Put that down."

Tseng does so, and Rufus fires. Once, then twice more when the gauge of his pistol proves too small to shatter the tape's casing. Even with the shakes it is a negligeable distance, but when he sees the bits of plastic scattered across the white-and-red mottled linen - magnetic tape tangled and glittering - the gun slides out of his hands before he thinks to take his finger off the trigger.

Tseng's expression does not even change. He makes a gesture with one hand, and the tape ignites with localized spell-flame, shrivelling into ash.

And then it is the two of them from across a dead man's bed, neither of them willing to look away. And Rufus cannot stop shaking.

He understands with sudden savagery that he hates Tseng.

Hates him. Hates all of them, really, the tall men, the ones who are strong. The ones with quiet eyes that concede nothing, like an animal's when it knows its strength and is waiting. What good titles and abstractions of power when you're in a fucking room alone with the knowledge behind those eyes, nothing but glass and air at your back, hands empty, animals _smell_ fear. They smell-

Blood. Desire.

He would not remember swaying.

Strong hands catch him by the arms. "Steady," Tseng says, his voice rough. Rufus stills a moment, then moves to push him away.

"Let go of me," he spits out. "Let the fuck go" But his knees refuse to hold him up, and Tseng has to support his weight. "Don't you dare touch me. You're not even supposed to be here. I'll have proof for everything that happens in this room." Rufus senses hysterical laughter bubbling up from within, and holds it at bay. "You'd be surprised where they'd decide to install a camera these days"

"I'll have that taken care of," Tseng answers quietly, and Rufus can no longer control the laughter. He buries his face in Tseng's shirt and lets it rack him. It dies away quickly enough, soon enough that he can no longer hide his soul's failing. Enough that he no longer knows how. His hands tighten on the fabric of Tseng's suit jacket. Music wafts past them from the window, the band taking up the tune, their frontswoman's throaty croon cutting through the air. _I'm through feelin' deeply, let's dive off the shallow end_

"Killer," he whispers. "Brute. Kiss me, why don't you?"

He sees the sudden fire in Tseng's dark eyes, and knows a moment of bitter triumph before he is pulled closer still, and Tseng's mouth comes down over his.

It lasts a long time. Tseng takes his lips demandingly, and he reciprocates without a trace of hesitation, forcing it deep and wet. The Turk tastes of cigarette cloves and musk, and something sweeter still. Such a strange toxin. He presses closer, winding his arms around Tseng's neck, and his eyes slide closed.

Eventually it is Tseng who breaks contact, tilting Rufus's face up to run a finger along his moist lips. "The tape," he says. "Was it someone who-"

Rufus gives a sharp shake of his head, and Tseng falls silent. "I let him," he says finally. "I let him. Just like Take me home. I'm sick of this place."

_IX. First Blood_

Tseng drives. Rufus stares out the window from the passenger seat, clutching his coat to him with one white hand. It is not protocol, really, but Tseng opened the door for him with as much courtesy as if it were. The only sound is the soft swish of windshield wipers against the renewed rain.

So much blood, he thinks.

_The hum of air conditioning, and debate. The boy sits in the corner, kicking his heels against the fluted mahogany legs of his chair. He plays with the drapes behind the Presidental seat; the fall of red velvet in his hands glows like blood. His father's boardroom is tacky, a monstrosity. He should have these drapes taken down, the boy thinks. They show up the directors for the creatures they are. The scientists, the administrators, the military high command - pulsing, fleshy horrors all. Only white would do. White, black, or silver. Preferably white._

_"General, your progress has been excellent, consistently excellent, your management of the Wutai campaign-"_

_He looks up into mako-verdant eyes. Masamune less keen than that gaze._

_He looks up_

Rufus closes his eyes. With violence in his low tone he says, "I don't know why he bothered. I was hardly more than a child. I thought it meant I Though if it had been revenge, I would have understood just as well."

"I see," Tseng says quietly.

"No," says Rufus. "I don't think you do."

They are silent until they reach the Building, and all through the ride up in the elevator.

_X. The Dawn From Sixty-Nine Stories Up_

Rufus doesn't bother with the light switch. He takes several steps into the room, then stops, his head lowered. Tseng has taken his coat, and drapes it now over the arm of a chair.

That beam of light again, sweeping past. Surely it is difficult to sleep here?

"Go," Rufus says suddenly. "Let me be."

There is insolence in his stance, something subtle, superfluous. Tseng gazes back at him a moment, then reaches behind him and closes the door. Rufus makes a bitterly amused sound.

"I can't tell you what to do anymore, can I?"

Tseng shakes his head. "I leave tomorrow," he says. "The orders I've received are to eliminate someone. A man I almost died to follow. A man who saved me." If he closes his eyes he can scent it still, taste the loam and the blood, feel his life drain away beneath him in a swoon he cannot fight. Lying among the dead in that forest. As if it happened yesterday; as if it were to happen again tomorrow.

...Feel the green life-fire burn into him, closing ravaged flesh and bone, and with claws of wild hope tear apart darkness to meet those eyes.

_On your feet, soldier._

"I don't know why he bothered," he says finally. His smile is feral.

Rufus does not move on his approach, except for his eyes which widen a little. "Do you hate me?" he asks when Tseng reaches to touch his lips again.

"I don't know." Tseng traces a path down Rufus's throat, following his pulse by touch. "But they are your orders," he adds.

In two abrupt, efficient motions he tears Rufus's shirt open, and moves to strip it from him.

Rufus gasps then and struggles. Tseng anticipates his moves and lets the blows fall where they may, using his hands to capture Rufus's arms behind him, pulling their bodies together. As their lips meet Rufus shudders, and is still.

Tseng kisses him throughly, knowingly, teases until Rufus presses back with the blood in his cheeks. He looses his grip on Rufus's arms, shifting his hold to the other man's slender hips. Rufus sways against him, eyes closed as Tseng undoes his belt. He hardly seems to notice, now, as the rest of their clothing is removed; even lets himself fall compliantly when Tseng pushes him onto the bed. But the same obscure anger makes Tseng pin his wrists and bind them, looping the belt around a post in the headboard. At that he cries out, a little.

In the end, though, he is nearly silent, and so seeming-young that Tseng feels pain despite himself. Pale tableau of limbs tangled in false candor. The searchlight sweeps past; in the brief half-illumination the sheets are only a little more ghostly than skin. Tseng has seen him just like this, as if it were his death claiming him, and now he understands. For the first time. He abandons gentleness again as he enters him, in calculated cruelty.

The ease of it would break him else.

Rufus gasps, but turns his head away and muffles it in the pillow. Tseng takes hold of his chin, forces him to meet his gaze.

"No," he says. "You stay with me, do you hear? Stay here."

For a moment Rufus's eyes are so dark they're nearly black. Then he chokes back a sob and rocks his hips up to meet Tseng's thrusts.

"Take me," he says, "take me-" Then he bites down sharply on Tseng's shoulder, and is silent.

They move together then, harsh and wanting, desperate. Tseng would remember the light again and again, flashes of stark shadow and the dream-wanton body arching beneath him, leaving nothing in its wake but darkness and taste and scent of the other marking his flesh. And then even that knowledge is gone. Only the desire remains, quickening to white-hot completion, and Tseng has to take Rufus's mouth one more time - in order not to voice the savage pleasure, the even more lancing regret. _It cannot last,_ he finds himself thinking, _it cannot._ Not even tomorrow, not even yesterday, for before and after the darkness awaits him.

_It cannot last._

Rufus is awake before him.

Tseng opens his eyes to the weariness of dawn, and the slender form of the President by the window. Rufus faces the glass and does not turn, even as Tseng rises and dresses. Even as he slips his jacket over his shoulders, and hesitates.

The first touch of rose on the horizon.

Rufus's clenched hands, at his side.

Tseng takes two steps and pulls Rufus against him, burying his lips in the soft gold of his nape. He feels a shudder run through Rufus's frame, then quiet. Rufus leans back against him, the rhythm of his respiration brittle; the fingers that wrap around his wrist are warm.

"Go," he says. "Just go."

And gazes out unseeing over Midgar until Tseng does.

Soft hiss of the door opening and closing, the seal re-established as soon as Tseng has stepped through. He will not stop or turn, Rufus knows: in a few paces he will be in an elevator, air pressure transparent-encased his controlled dive down the gleaming side of the Building.

Rufus Shinra leans back against the window, quiet, letting the cool of glass against flesh drain his body of treachery. So many stories.

He wonders about the fall.

_In control now of my own defeat  
I've made mistakes we're bound to repeat  
I'm through feeling deeply  
Let's dive off the shallow end_

_Morcheeba, "Shallow End"_

_--Montreal, December 2000_

* * *


End file.
